Employee: Owner Told Me To Embezzle Cash

The attorney for a bookkeeper charged with embezzling more than $100,000 from a Coconut Creek construction firm claimed Wednesday that his client was told to do so by her former supervisor.

Kathryn Rockwell, 38, is accused of making out $101,303 in checks to herself from the accounts of Raben-Pastal after she began working there in November 1981. She was charged with 13 counts of grand theft.

But, during opening arguments at Rockwell`s trial Wednesday in Broward Circuit Court, Assistant Public Defender Gary Cowart said there was no theft because Raben-Pastal`s president and part-owner, Paul Pariser, told Rockwell to misappropriate the money so he would have tax breaks and a secret reservoir of ready cash.

Prosecutor Brian Cavanagh blasted Cowart`s argument.

``The evidence is going to show she stole more than half a million dollars,`` Cavanagh told the jury. ``In fact, more than $600,000.``

Cavanagh said that Rockwell, who was totally responsible for record-keeping, hid her crime by withholding bank statements and checks from the firm`s quarterly auditors and its president, ``a tough business man, oddly enough, a demanding man who wants to know what`s going on.``

Cavanagh said Rockwell started issuing checks to herself, forging Pariser`s signature, nine days after the company employed her on Nov. 11, 1981.

The practice continued until Oct. 15, 1982, when Pariser said he learned a $14,000 check to a lawyer bounced and the company`s operating accounts were $80,000 less than Rockwell`s last report, Cavanagh said.

Cowart, Rockwell`s attorney, said Pariser received money back from Rockwell and also gained tax breaks, personally and for the company, which was a joint venture of Raben Builders Inc. and Pastal Construction Co. Inc.

Pariser testified Wednesday that Rockwell had duped him, within a year, out of more than $640,000 -- about twice the company`s total yearly earnings.

Raben-Pastal is now suing its former accountants, Peat, Marwick, Mitchell and Co. of Fort Lauderdale, and First American Bank and Trust for allegedly failing to spot the irregularities.

With the money, the defense concedes, Rockwell paid for five homes, various personal and automobile expenses and a Coral Springs restaurant called Dynasty, which she operated from July through December 1982.

Rockwell was planning to open a second restaurant also to be called Dynasty -- the former Sgt. Pepper`s on Sunrise Boulevard near State Road 441 -- ``when her house of paper cards came tumbling down,`` Cavanagh said. ``A Dynasty bought with someone else`s money.``

Rockwell has stated in pre-trial reports that Pariser asked her shortly after her employment to help him siphon funds from his own company.

``She was to invest those funds in liquid assets so she could provide Pariser with ready cash in case he needed it. She wrote checks to herself, signed by Pariser and charged to job costs,`` W. David Ellrich Jr., a North Palm Beach accountant assisting the defense, wrote in a summary of Rockwell`s statements to him.